About this artwork

Ngalpingka has painted Wayiyul country associated with the Minyma Tjuta Tjukurpa (Seven Sister’s creation story). This country is close to Karilywara (Patjarr) in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands of Western Australia. It is where Ngalpingka was born and grew up living a traditional nomadic life with her family. She knows this country intimately, in both a physical and spiritual sense. Her knowledge of the country extends to the ancestral beings that created this landscape. Wayiyul is a Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sister’s) area which is a powerful and sacred Western Desert story. This is an epic song line which crosses vast tracts of land and language groups. The sisters camped at Wayiyul as you can see by the semicircular motifs in the painting and were being followed by Nyiiru, the lustful old man who was trying to take one of the women to be his wife, the elder sister. He has been stalking them, camping some distance from where they stop and hiding behind his windbreak, poking his head over to take a look. “True story from the Tjukurpa. I was a little baby at Wayiyul with my mother.”